University of Pittsburgh Honors College

University Of Pittsburgh Honors College

The University of Pittsburgh Honors College (termed the "Honors College" by students and often abbreviated UHC) is an undergraduate college providing a program of advanced study at the Oakland campus of the University of Pittsburgh in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Arising out of the University Honors Program founded in 1978, it transitioned into a college formally dedicated in 1987. The University Honors College provides undergraduate classes that are more challenging and exhaustive than their non-honors counterparts in a wide variety of academic disciplines via collaboration with the other schools of the university. In addition, students are provided with specialized advising and honors housing opportunities. Rather than applying for admission to the UHC and then taking classes solely within it, the honors college does not have a formal membership, but is open to all students meeting certain eligibility requirements, or acquiring special permission, and offers flexibility for students to take advantage of its offerings and resources in accordance to their individual motivation. UHC awards a special Bachelor of Philosophy (B.Phil.) degree to graduates and has successfully helped to culture its students to a school record number of national and international awards including seven Rhodes Scholarships, 10 Marshall Scholarships, 46 Goldwater Scholarships, 11 Truman Scholarships, and seven Udall Scholarships; as well as Churchill and Gates Cambridge scholarships.

“The great problem of American life [is] the riddle of authority: the difficulty of finding a way, within a liberal and individualistic social order, of living in harmonious and consecrated submission to something larger than oneself.... A yearning for self-transcendence and submission to authority [is] as deeply rooted as the lure of individual liberation.”—Wilfred M. McClay, educator, author. The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America, p. 4, University of North Carolina Press (1994)

“The logical English train a scholar as they train an engineer. Oxford is Greek factory, as Wilton mills weave carpet, and Sheffield grinds steel. They know the use of a tutor, as they know the use of a horse; and they draw the greatest amount of benefit from both. The reading men are kept by hard walking, hard riding, and measured eating and drinking, at the top of their condition, and two days before the examination, do not work but lounge, ride, or run, to be fresh on the college doomsday.”—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)

“My hearts subduedEven to the very quality of my lord.I saw Othellos visage in his mind,And to his honors and his valiant partsDid I my soul and fortunes consecrate.”—William Shakespeare (15641616)

“The largest business in American handled by a woman is the Money Order Department of the Pittsburgh Post-office; Mary Steel has it in charge.”—Lydia Hoyt Farmer (18421903)

“It is the goal of the American university to be the brains of the republic.”—Johan Huizinga (18721945)